PNY GeForce 8800 GTX XLR8 Overclocked Edition Review

XLR8 Your Gaming Experience

Introduction

Several months ago I received an email from a PR contact PNY with a very interesting announcement. It was at first what looked like your typical overclocked GeForce 8800 GTX card until I zoomed in on the power connectors: there appeared to be one standard 6-pin and one of the new 8-pin PCIe power connectors:

Previous PR image sent out -- not the actual card tested

That news post was in early May; soon after my post I was contacted by both NVIDIA and PNY that the card was NOT going to ship with that power connector combination and would instead use the regular dual 6-pin PCIe connectors. Oh well, I was hoping that the extra power would translate into something amazing.

Just because the power system was changed, that doesn't change the fact that PNY is selling a highly overclocked 8800 GTX that rivals the fastest GPUs in the world.

PNY GeForce 8800 GTX XLR8 Overclocked Edition

PNY has been a player in the graphics card market for a LONG time but only in the past few years has the company name been making a comeback.

The PCB and cooler on the PNY GeForce 8800 GTX are the same as those used on the reference design with the exception of a sticker on the top; that has been the case with almost every 8800 GTX card to hit the market. PNY's "XLR8" (think accelerate) line of cards run at overclocked speeds.

With the reference speeds of the NVIDIA 8800 GTX at 575 MHz clock and 900 MHz memory, PNY's overclocked default specifications look very impressive. At 621 MHz core and 1000 MHz memory clocks, this card is actually faster than the 8800 Ultra that was released in May with clocks of 612 MHz core and 1080 MHz memory.

Of course the card still has dual dual-link DVI ports and a video output that will do standard definition over S-video and also HDTV with the included dongle.

Unlike our initial press release email photo, the PNY 8800 GTX XLR8 card still uses two 6-pin PCIe power connectors; the same as every other 8800 GTX card on the market.

SLI support is still there of course, and with the pair of SLI connections you can expect the 8800 GTX to support any three card configurations that NVIDIA will make available down the road.

The XLR8 Performance Edition card comes in a very fancy box and is well presented as a high-end component with some prestige around it.

The extras included in the box are pretty basic; two DVI-to-VGA adaptors, two power adaptors, an S-video cable and HDTV dongle.